Chickory

[Ken Kovak]

Chicory
Montezuma NWR, NY

Have not posted here in quite a while. Just a simple wild flower that is very common and can be seen in many places.

Canon EOS 40D
Canon EF 100mm f2.8 Macro Lens
1/800 sec @ f6.3
Tripod mounted on Gitzo 3453LS
hand held diffuser to block the direct sunlight
lightly processed with Nik Viveza 2 via Lightroom

Comments and critiques most welcome.

[PhilCook]

Nice powder blue color on this image and the subtle background tones dont compete with it at all. Like the upturned flower head and fine detail and sits in the frame nicely

[Jonathan Ashton]

Very nice indeed, I love the gentle colour of the flower head, I suspect you chose thi saperture to mimimise the DOF and thus interference from the background, I do wish for a little more DOF, I think the front right petal would have looked a little better sharp.

[Anita Bower]

Lovely! The Chicory are blooming here also. Each year I intend to photograph them, but never do. I like the simplicity, the details, the tones of blue, the darker stamen (?), the blurred bg. When photographing outdoors it is always a balance between getting sharpness in the flower and eliminating detail in the bg. I think you achieved the right balance here. I might clone out the half a bud on the lower border. This is a very nice capture.

[Ken Kovak]

Thanks for the kind comments. I should have tried another aperture for greater DOF, and normally I would shoot a specimen like this in a wide range of apertures. However, my car was blocking the road in the NWR and I had to move it. I had started wide open and was working my way down. This had the best DOF. Not sure how the BG would have changed when I closed down.

Ken

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Ken. Love the blues and they contrast nicely with the background. The sharpness within your DOF is right where it most needs to be and I like your comp - though I agree with Anita about cropping the clipped bud at the bottom of the frame. Very nicely done!